Mordecai Brown Grave in Terre Haute, Indiana

Major League Baseball star Mordecai Brown is frequently visited at his gravesite in Terre Haute, Indiana. The Chicago Cubs won two pennants and two World Series while Mordecai Brown was pitching for them. He’s perhaps most famous for his performance in the 1908 World Series, when he pitched no runs for 11 innings and won two games for the Cubs. The Mordecai Brown Grave is located in Roselawn Memorial Park Cemetery, along the Illinois border. Baseball fans frequently visit to pay homage, and many stop by the cemetery on a day trip from Indianapolis.

This Baseball celebrity was nicknamed Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown, because of an injury that left his pitching hand mangled. When he was a seven-year-old growing up in the Hoosier State, he lost his right index finger and part of another in a corn shredder. He didn’t let that traumatic experience shatter his professional baseball dreams. Actually, it gave him an advantage for pitching a snappy curve ball.

Mordecai Brown got his start in baseball while working as a coal miner and playing on a company team. He later joined a minor league team in Terre Haute before his major league premier with the Saint Louis Cardinals. He was 26-yeas-old when he made it to the big leagues in 1903, and he was traded to the Chicago Cubs for his second season. All told, Mordecai Brown pitched more than 250 innings per season for the next seven years. He was showered with awards, and he was also the first pitcher in league history to win four consecutive shutouts. The Chicago Cubs haven’t won a World Series title since Brown brought home two consecutive titles for them in 1907 and 1908.

Old Three Finger’s career lasted until he was nearly 40. In total, he won 239 games, and even maintained an impressive batting average. After a mid-career injury, Mordecai Brown became a player-manager until his retirement in 1920. His history in Indiana stretches back to his birth in Parke County. His boyhood home, near the antique covered bridges of Parke County, now has a historical marker for all to observe.

Mordecai Brown died in 1948, and one year later he became the first Hoosier inductee to the Baseball Hall of Fame in New York. The Mordecai Brown Grave is found in section J of Roselawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Terre Haute. He’s buried at grave site number 218, right next to his wife Sarah who died in 1958. Visitors come so frequently to this somber attraction that the cemetery provides a map that helps navigate people to the site. Escape from Indy for a day and come pay homage to an Indiana sports legend.